Thank you for all the info. on what a resort fee is. Its kinda like your plan ticket, you buy a ticket but have to pay to reserve your seat and pay a luggage fee. You just pay it get on your flight and go to vegas. The people who don't like the resort fees kinda remind me of a buddie of mine last time we went to vegas. We played 7 hours at MGM he lost round 500.00 for the session. We are all hunger and decide to go to the MGM buffet and he complains about having to pay 29.99 or whatever it was to eat at the buffet. You just dropped 500.00 and you are worried about paying to much for a buffet. I feel everyone has a right to give their opinion however it is vegas a tourist destination, and you over pay for just about everything.

Well there you have it, the transformation of Las Vegas in the public imagination to New Vegas is now official and all that remains to permanently cement the concept in the mind of prospective pigeons, er, our valued visitors, is a new marketing slogan. To that end, as the Assistant Deputy Undersecretary to the Associate Vice President for Miscellaneous Affairs at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, I've been delegated to conduct a test marketing focus group here on alternatives.

The choices so far:

• Las Vegas, because its only money;
  
  
• Visit the new Las Vegas today, and get screwed by pros;
  
  
• If you can't read THIS the new Las Vegas wants you now;
  
  
• Vegas Now! Or we strangle the kitty and bill you for it;
  
  
• Don't sweat it - this is Vegas, that's how we do you, ah, do it here;
  
  
• Sheep need shorn, potatoes get peeled, suckers hosed here;
  
  
• Your wallet, our vacuum, Vegas;
  
  
• The New Las Vegas, where even 'free' doesn't really cost all that much when you see it our way;
  
  
• Las Vegas - we accept money, for a fee;
  
  
• Vegas – just relax, and bend over.

That should pack 'em in, doncha think?

_________________
Life is six to five against.
-Damon Runyon

I understand the outrage over resort fees. They're deceptive -- for sure when searching hotel prices you don't see them -- and $20-25/day for the services they provide is too much. Unlike a parking fee or a breakfast buffet fee, given the choice I expect 90%+ would decline the fee and the services.

But I agree with Clem, it comes down to total price. Even with the resort fee, Aria is a LOT cheaper this coming weekend than similar properties. And really $169 + 25 is still less than $200 + 0.

Edit to add: Also in the past when I've stayed at TI as a casino guest (poker room rate) they waived the resort fee for me. Don't know if that's still practice or happens in other places. But for sure increasing the resort fee instead of room rate helps some consumers.

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Don't tap the glass!

Last night at the Mirage poker table someone asked me if I knew how to use an iPhone as a WiFi hotspot so his friend could use his WiFi-only iPad through his 3G iPhone. I can't do that with my unlimited ATT data plan so I've never tried it and couldn't offer advice, but when I inquired a bit more he explained that his friend is staying at Mirage and didn't want to pay the outrageous $15/day Internet fee.

I ask, "Doesn't Mirage charge a resort fee? Didn't your friend have to pay that? Doesn't that include Internet access?"

His reply, "I dunno--he just said when he tried to access the Internet from his room it told him he had to pay $15/day and it'd be billed to his credit card automatically."

Yet here it is on their web page: "There is no charge associated with the internet access, as it is an inclusion of the resort fee."

Common theme. I've read multiple posts from people who said they were actually billed for Internet access despite having paid the resort fees at the MGM properties. They had to argue with the desk to get the Internet fee removed. And even if they aren't intending to double bill for such things, why are they lying to their customers about the charges?

As long as there is idiots willing to pay for a resort fee the resort fee is not going away, the same idiots that continue to play 6:5 BJ are the same idiots that could care less about a resort fee. I agree its all about the total cost, but if you lower the room rate just to tack on a resort fee and stay with in the same price, all its telling me is that you have been way over charging for the rooms.

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Hookem Horns

It is simple math, and it is ONLY about the TOTAL COST. People who don't realize that are the true idiots and allow Aria to charge better rates than say Caesars, or the Venetian to charge better rates than Caesars. It won't alweays be the case- I did stay at Planet Hollywood on my last trip in, but it can vary from trip to trip, but with every trip- TOTAL COST IS THE KEY!!!!!!

Make sure to add on the "Michael Bolton fee" at Monte Carlo..its disclosed in small print at the bottom of the page when booking. It says that we as customers must pay $9.99 for the pleasure of hearing Bolton songs in the hotel elevators.

No Clem, I really don't think so, son. I'm pretty sure I've traveled more thousands of miles and spent more nights in hotels in just the last two years alone (over 150,000 and over 250 respectively) than you have in your life, and most likely more in the last decade than you probably ever will, and among sensible travelers a preference for a reasonable degree of certainty as to what is being provided and what will be charged for it is often an important value when booking a room. People quite intelligently avoid providers of goods and services known to engage in these practices, tending to avoid exposing themselves to moving targets on the road, preferring to gamble with something other than their essential accommodations and to avoid doing so while in the vulnerable position of standing at the registration desk with their luggage. Large business enterprises providing retail goods and services with extensive geographic reach frequently invest a great deal to achieve a dependable predictable reputation to insure their long range success. People quite intelligently avoid providers of goods and services known to engage in these practices, and on a personal level the people who are comfortable rationalizing them.

Since they are working to disguise their actual price, obviously MGM does not agree with your view on "all that matters" Clem. Neither do most travelers. Neither do states' attorneys general who've brought successful fraud suits with others over this issue. This bait and switch scam quite rightly generates a considerable amount of ill-will among customers, and it is very well known and acknowledged by those doing it that while it generates significant immediate revenue it does so at the expense of reducing repeat business in the future. And the stench from it often attaches not just to the individual enterprise pulling the scam, but to the reputation of the destination as a whole for travelers. You'll just have to pardon us idiots who persist in thinking we'd prefer to be reasonably sure what something will actually cost BEFORE we purchase it rather than afterward without having to delve into a research project to vet the truthfulness of the rate we are quoted, and have misgivings about dealing with those who can't manage to pass over that little ankle-high business ethics yardstick.

Or perhaps I'm just an idiot, who doesn't understand what the hell he's doing, lacking the superior cognitive capacity necessary. After all, having at one time managed three hotel properties among other things in the course of my decrepit sad idiot's life probably doesn't help me understand what is going on here any more than my academic Economics degree, at least not on the level of the deep Clem hotel fee metagame. However, I can tell you that this practice was pioneered a little over a decade ago in Las Vegas by a few operators known to specialize in catering to the niche market of clueless kids (Hard Rock & Stratosphere) and which have since been through multiple bankruptcy reorganizations, and spread more readily to those that do a lot of their business with group bookings and do NOT tend to depend as much as others on repeat business from loyal returning customers booking as independent travelers spending their own money. Chew on that last bit Clem. The meaning will come to you, I'm sure, if you ponder it hard enough.

_________________
Life is six to five against.
-Damon Runyon

I was Rick Rolled at the Mirage... by the Mirage. Seriously, it was on the muzak loop in the casino; came wafting at me from somewhere in the ceiling near the pit. I forgot to bill them for listening. But it is still less brutal to endure than dealertainers.

_________________
Life is six to five against.
-Damon Runyon

My personal fave Rick Roll:



BTW, Mandalay Bay just charged you for watching that.